Compose styles
Rather than blending styles toward a middle, this gives them roles. The first one carries the structure, the next comes in as the accent, and anything after that shows up in a single detail. Where they fight each other, it says so before you start.
How to divide the work
- Composition
- Follow Provoke: Full-bleed spreads with the image cut straight through the gutter
- Type
- Set in Provoke's manner (Type struck over the image and cropped, explanatory captions removed), and let Snapshot Aesthetic's lettering (No type, or at most a scrawl on the back of a print) appear only where you want the eye to catch.
- Material
- Ground in Provoke's material (Pushed grain and crushed black, tone thrown away in exposure and development); bring in exactly one thing from Snapshot Aesthetic (Direct flash with its hard shadow, color left uncorrected).
- Colour
- Build on #fbfaf8, #3a3a3a, #000000 and admit one accent from #e3eee6, #979b71, #16120e.
Where they fight
- Provoke and Snapshot Aesthetic stand roughly 80 years apart. Keep one of them recognisably period rather than letting both drift into the middle.
Caution
- Provoke Adding blur and grain afterward as an effect leaves pictures that are merely rough, because nothing changed in how they were taken.
- Snapshot Aesthetic The harder amateurism is staged, the more it shows, and the absence of real time spent with the subject becomes the only thing visible.
Image prompt
Produce four original images that take their structure from Provoke (style, 1968–1970) and their accent from Snapshot Aesthetic (style, 1888– / 1960s art adoption). ## What to make Make the kind of thing Provoke exists for: photobooks and magazine spreads on the city and the body that permit roughness, or music or clothing campaigns aimed against polished advertising. Choose one subject and hold it across all four. ## Structure comes from Provoke - Rough grain (are) - Blur and defocus affirmed - High-contrast black - Fragmentary framing Composition: Full-bleed spreads with the image cut straight through the gutter. Type and lettering: Type struck over the image and cropped, explanatory captions removed. ## Accent comes from Snapshot Aesthetic, used sparingly - Tilted framing - Subjects cut by the frame - Direct flash - Album intimacy Let one material quality come from it: Direct flash with its hard shadow, color left uncorrected. ## Colour and feeling Build the ground on #fbfaf8, carry the structure in #3a3a3a and #000000, and let a single accent come from #979b71. These are read off real works, so a direction rather than a fixed palette. Feeling to carry: rebellion, exhilaration, calm, intimacy, nostalgia. ## Where they fight - Provoke and Snapshot Aesthetic stand roughly 80 years apart. Keep one of them recognisably period rather than letting both drift into the middle. ## What goes wrong - Provoke: Adding blur and grain afterward as an effect leaves pictures that are merely rough, because nothing changed in how they were taken. - Snapshot Aesthetic: The harder amateurism is staged, the more it shows, and the absence of real time spent with the subject becomes the only thing visible. ## Across the four Keep the roles fixed in all four. Vary the framing, the scale and the arrangement so the set shows what this pairing can do rather than four versions of one picture. ## Constraints - Do not imitate, reference or name any specific artist, studio, brand, character or copyrighted work. - Do not reproduce the composition of an existing work. - Produce original compositions in the general period languages described above.
Related entries
- Provoke 1968–1970 / Style / Photography Movements
The magazine Provoke called itself provocative materials for thought. Working through are-bure-boke, coarse grain and blur and lost focus, it stripped photography of tidy meaning and gave seeing back its rawness.
- Snapshot Aesthetic 1888– / 1960s art adoption / Style / Photographic Genres
An aesthetic that takes the failures of amateur photography since Kodak, the tilted horizon, the head cut off at the edge, the flatness of the flash, and claims them on purpose. The intimacy of the family album became a grammar for art photography from Winogrand to Goldin.
Share this composition:https://indexstyle.org/compose?ids=provoke+snapshot-aesthetic